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Characterising Ice Motion Variability at Helheim Glacier Front from Continuous GPS Observations
Glacies, Volume: 3, Issue: 1, Start page: 1
Swansea University Authors: James Colinese, Tavi Murray
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© 2026 by the authors. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license.
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DOI (Published version): 10.3390/glacies3010001
Abstract
Understanding short-term glacier motion is vital for assessing ice sheet dynamics in a warming climate. This study investigates the tidal and diurnal influences on the flow of Helheim Glacier, one of Greenland’s fastest-flowing marine-terminating glaciers, using data from 18 high-frequency GPS senso...
| Published in: | Glacies |
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| ISSN: | 2813-8740 |
| Published: |
MDPI AG
2026
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| Online Access: |
Check full text
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| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa71275 |
| Abstract: |
Understanding short-term glacier motion is vital for assessing ice sheet dynamics in a warming climate. This study investigates the tidal and diurnal influences on the flow of Helheim Glacier, one of Greenland’s fastest-flowing marine-terminating glaciers, using data from 18 high-frequency GPS sensors and a regional tide gauge collected during summer 2013. A Kalman filter was applied to separate and quantify glacier velocity, tidal admittance, and diurnal melt-driven acceleration. Results reveal a high level of tidal admittance affecting the horizontal flow speed of the glacier, especially at the centre of the glacier, which is propagated upstream. This admittance corresponds to a 0.38–0.68 m/day reduction from the mean at high spring tide and a comparable increase at low tide. The glacier’s vertical motion showed strong tidal control close to the terminus, of 0.6–1.05 m during high spring tides, but this was significantly reduced more than 1 km from the terminus. Diurnal variations in horizontal speed are less spatially and temporally variable, with most nodes experiencing changes from a mean speed of ±0.1–0.3 m/day. These findings demonstrate that both tidal forcing and meltwater input to the basal system exert a significant, and potentially spatially variable, control on glacier dynamics, highlighting the need to incorporate short-period external forcing into predictive models of marine-terminating glacier behaviour. |
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| Keywords: |
marine-terminating glacier; tidewater glacier; glacier dynamics; GPS |
| College: |
Faculty of Science and Engineering |
| Funders: |
This research was funded by UK NERC, grant number NE/I007148/1. C.P. was funded by Newcastle University. |
| Issue: |
1 |
| Start Page: |
1 |